


Abu el Banat

by helsinkibaby



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Community: 1-million-words, F/M, Fluff, Het, Pregnancy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24900391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: A careless comment upsets Noelani.
Relationships: Noelani Cunha/Steve McGarrett
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23
Collections: 1 Million Words' Weekend Challenge





	Abu el Banat

**Author's Note:**

> For the weekend challenge, Father’s Day. Prompt:  
> 7\. It is a wise father that knows his own child
> 
> Title comes from The West Wing, and means “father of daughters”

“Mama!”

At the squeal from his younger daughter, Steve twisted around in surprise, following her gaze. Sure enough, Noelani was sitting on the love seat on the lanai, a soft smile on her lips as she watched him playing with the two girls in the sandbox. He grinned across at her, then back at the girls. “That’s right, Mommy’s home...” Something made him look around again and this time he noticed Noelani’s smile was slightly further away, her gaze a little more distracted. He blinked once, looked a little longer just to be sure, then he shifted slightly, dusting off his hands. “Girls, you make a surprise for Mommy, all right? I’ll be back in a second...” 

The two little girls barely noticed he was gone, already reaching for the collection of plastic sand moulds, four year old Kalia already telling two year old Keilana what to do. Knowing they’d be perfectly happy there for quite a while, Steve stood and made his way across the lawn, whistling at Eddie as he did so, pointing to the gap in front of the lawn chairs on the beach. He didn’t have to say a word, because Eddie knew his job, obediently trotting towards the gap and lying down in front of it, providing an excellent barrier to any of, in Danny’s words, Steve’s ninja spawn who might be tempted to go exploring. 

“Hey.” Dropping down beside Noelani, he dropped a kiss on her lips. He meant it to be quick, but her hand moved to the back of his head, held him in place for a few seconds longer. Which confirmed his suspicions of moments earlier, that something wasn’t quite right. He frowned as he drew back, looking down at her, his hand automatically going to the almost six month swell of her abdomen. “Are you okay?” 

She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m fine.” 

He gave her a look. “You want to try that again?” 

Noelani looked at him for a moment before sighing, her eyes moving from his face to the sandbox and the two girls still happily playing together, their dark heads almost touching. “Maria’s mother in law was at the baby shower.” 

“Okay...” Maria, whose baby shower Noelani had attended that afternoon, was a good friend of Noelani’s and Steve had met said mother in law at Maria’s wedding. To say that she made Danny’s tales of Amanda Savage look like he was talking about Mary Poppins was putting it mildly. That opener from Noelani could have ended in a million different ways, none of them good. To add insult to injury, Noelani had been ambivalent about going to the shower in the first place, it being Maria’s first baby while she was obviously pregnant with her third. Steve had been the one to convince her to go, telling her a break from the girls would do her good. 

He was regretting that now. 

“She asked me if I knew what I was having, I told her it was a girl. Then she asked me if it was my first. And when I told her we already have two girls...” Here she paused, took a deep breath. “She told me bad luck... that I’d have to keep trying to give you a son.” 

It would be bad form, Steve thought, for a trained combat veteran like himself to hunt down an unarmed civilian over a comment she’d made to his wife. 

Nonetheless, he was tempted. 

Instead, what he said was, “You know that’s crap, right?” 

“I know.” Except Noelani’s eyes were huge and dark and troubled. “But... I’ve seen you with Charlie... and Nahele... you’re so good with them. A son of your own...” Her voice trailed off but he knew what she was thinking.

“Would it be nice? Sure. So would a million dollars in my bank account. Every criminal on this island deciding to go straight and putting me out of a job, that’d be nice. Danny Williams going a full day without complaining? That’d be nice. But I don’t need any of those things to be happy, Noelani. I’m happy just the way I am.” 

She didn’t take her eyes off him as he was speaking and he knew her well enough, after all these years, to know he was getting through to her. Just like he knew that there was still a little doubt in her eyes. “If you wanted to try-” she began and he cut her off on that one before she could finish. They’d already agreed that they were done after this pregnancy - they’d actually thought they were done after Keilana but the universe had had other plans for them. Still, they’d agreed that three kids was enough for them and besides, while she’d sailed through the other two pregnancies, this time around hadn’t exactly been kind to Noelani. There was no way Steve was putting her through this again, son or no son. 

“Noelani, no.” He put one hand on her shoulder, pointed with the other towards the sandbox. “Look over there. Look at those two beautiful little girls we made. And we’ve got another one on the way just like them, you know how lucky that makes us? What’s a boy going to give me that they can’t?” His hand squeezed her shoulder while the other splayed across her belly, moving gently across the bump. “I love my girls, Noelani,” he told her, his voice low enough to cause tears to smart in her eyes. “All four of them.” 

He saw her swallow hard as one of her hands moved to cover his. Almost as if she was aware of it, their daughter chose that exact moment to deliver an almighty kick, one that had Noelani wincing, even as Steve chuckled. 

“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a football kicker here,” he told Noelani, his hand sliding down to the site of the kick, rubbing there gently. Much to his delight, there was a definite push back against his touch and he leaned down slightly, saying to the bump, “Hey... go easy on your mom, okay?” 

He looked up when he heard Noelani sniffing softly. “Don’t tell me,” he asked as she lifted her hand to her cheek, swiping away the tears that were threatening to fall. “Hormones?” 

“This is all your fault, you know.” 

Steve grinned - Noelani had been telling him that since two pink lines had appeared on the pregnancy test. “Just because you’re irresistible,” he told her, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. “And let me get these girls to bed and I’ll show you just how irresistible I still find you.” 

Noelani chuckled at that, shifting so that her head rested on his shoulder, a contented little sigh leaving her lips. “Promises, promises,” she murmured and he chose to take that as a challenge. 

And later on that night, with their girls in bed, it was one he gladly accepted.


End file.
